EPT
TYIntroduction
When the opening matchup was announced for KT vs Samsung in Round 4, there were portions of the league's regular audience that read the names with excitement. Yet, while TY and Stork are skilled and popular pros, their forms throughout the season have been needlessly undulating for players of their caliber. It was a tepid excitement, to say the least, as their match could bore and confound as much as it could impress.
Fortunately, the fans that decided to tune in were not disappointed, as the game was rated by viewers at 100% on This Week In Starcraft II. It was an action packed game from start to finish as both players came out guns-a-blazing without hardly slowing down, despite a lengthy pause. It was arguably one of the most Brood War-esque TvP's to date, which earns the game a special highlight from TL Strategy.
KT TY
While the name TY might seem unfamiliar, the name BaBy should ring bells for long-time fans of Starcraft. Once thought to be a prodigy and the next big thing in RTS, BaBy began his career by demolishing players in middle school leagues in Korea. After drawing interest due to his grasp of the game at such a young age, WeMade FOX took a punt on the youngster and signed him at the age of 12. That means that at 19 years old this year, he's been a pro for 7 years. Yes, think about that for a second.
Known for his top tier mechanics, TY has carried over that reputation to SC2. His emphasis on micro and multitasking has helped him develop a knack for entertaining matches, and he's recently climbed the depths of Code B to finally make Code S. That intense focus on the multi-tasking side of the game often leaves TY with less than meticulous precision -- bordering on sloppiness -- yet his strengths often outweigh his weaknesses, resulting in a spot among KT's Big Four Proleague players.
Samsung Khan Stork
When the announcement was made that KeSPA players were going to make the switch to Starcraft II, Stork was already on a steady decline. His place as Samsung's brightest star had already been succeeded by JangBi, and the switch also coincided with the rise of the once reliable but unspectacular RorO. Fans of Song Byung Goo would not have been blamed to expect retirement soon after his inexplicable 13-game, 268-day losing streak in Proleague, but Stork persevered. He never gave up. And now, he's a respectable Code S player and a Proleague staple.
2014 has been a good year for Stork, not only in terms of results, but also in terms of experience. He has enjoyed a resurgence in his career and he has flown to international tournaments like Homestory Cup IX and IEM Shenzhen, things that seemed all but a fantasy a year ago. He’s beaten incredible players in Rain, Classic, herO, Maru and ByuL in the last two rounds of the season, showing that there's still more to come from one of our elder statesmen.
Despite his games often appearing unrefined or careless, his determination in and out of the game has seen him become one of the most compelling players in the scene. There may be no hype train behind a player that's been with us for a decade, but his story continues to be inspiring.
This game, more than any other, shows that while it took a while for him to find joy in a new game, Stork finally looks like he's having fun. And his results show it.
Begin!
The Openings
Stork's Build Order:
9 Pylon
12 Gateway
15 Assimilator x2
17 Pylon
19 Cybernetics Core
20 Pylon
20 Stalker
20 Mothership Core
24 Gateway Research
27 Nexus
3 Probes in each gas.
31 Stalker
[5:30] Gateway x4
Going for two very fast gasses, Stork looked poised to go for the traditional oracle rush on Habitation Station against terran, but he only put two probes into each gas geyser. He ended up opting for a very fast stalker and mothership core instead, something that Stork quite likes to do on this map.9 Pylon
12 Gateway
15 Assimilator x2
17 Pylon
19 Cybernetics Core
20 Pylon
20 Stalker
20 Mothership Core
24 Gateway Research
27 Nexus
3 Probes in each gas.
31 Stalker
[5:30] Gateway x4
TY meanwhile, was going for a slightly off-tempo defensive 1-1-1 build. After confirming with his scouting SCV that Stork was still mining with two probes in each gas at the 4:00 mark, he knew that Stork was not going to be doing an oracle rush, and could rule that out as a possibility.
What he didn't know was that Stork was feigning a regular expand to the natural and decided to expand to the gold at 4:40. During all of this, he was chronoboosting his probes like a madman in preparation for the maynard to the gold base.
![[image loading]](/staff/Jer99/TyVsStork/tyvsstork1.jpg)
TY clicking on the gas gives a wealth of information as to what Stork might be up to.
TY's Build Order:
10 Supply Depot
12 Barracks
15 Refinery
16 Marine
16 Orbital
16 Supply Depot
18 Reactor
19 Command Center
21 Factory
21 Marine x2
24 Bunker
24 Supply Depot
@Factory complete, swap barracks addon.
32 Widow Mine x2
32 Starport
36 Hellion x2
@Starport complete, medivac, refinery.
TY completely failed to scout the gold base and simply assumed that Stork took his natural expansion. He continued on with his 1-1-1 as normal, constantly producing marines and then getting a quick two mines out to defend. With such a low marine count, he was forced to make a bunker at his natural expansion. As a result, he was quite securely holed up in his base by the 6:00 mark. This security came at the cost of information, as he was still unaware of Stork’s total of five gateways and a gold base economy.10 Supply Depot
12 Barracks
15 Refinery
16 Marine
16 Orbital
16 Supply Depot
18 Reactor
19 Command Center
21 Factory
21 Marine x2
24 Bunker
24 Supply Depot
@Factory complete, swap barracks addon.
32 Widow Mine x2
32 Starport
36 Hellion x2
@Starport complete, medivac, refinery.
Stork began mass producing stalkers and sentries once his gateway research completed at 6:30, and started to make his way across the map.
The heat was on. TY had to make extra bunkers immediately. Against a force devoid of zealots, TY realized his hellions were not going to be particularly effective and immediately sent out his medivac to Stork's main base with them inside. Stalkers were constantly being warped in by Stork right outside of TY’s natural and tank production began as soon as possible in order to attempt to hold the natural.
Once Stork pushed in, two mines exploded and immediately killed a stalker and damaged the shields of many others. The mark of a great player, however, is to make the best of any situation. A lot of damage was prevented by the lightning fast reflexes of Stork splitting the Stalkers, but the two zealots he warped in should have soaked up the mine hits instead.
![[image loading]](/staff/Jer99/TyVsStork/tyvsstork2.jpg)
Making the best of it.
With great forcefield placement, Stork crashed through the two bottom bunkers. He didn't have enough time to kill the third one before the tank completed, though, and was forced to retreat to the southern part of TY’s natural. With his sentries taking focus fired from tank shots, Stork was forced to run southward, but at this point his army was stuck behind mines and a siege tank. Luckily, he was still able to force a lift off of the command center. During all of this, the hellion drop proved to be a dud, only netting a total of three probe kills for the cost of four hellions and a medivac. Within the span of about two minutes, the game could have swung either way multiple times.
At 9:15, TY attempted to retake his natural expansion, but a well-timed flank with newly warped in zealots by Stork and a quick focus fire on the siege tank nearly shuts down this attempt. Luckily, TY still manages to retake the natural, but the SCVs that TY pulled came just a little bit too late, and he lost more resources retaking his expansion than he should have.
As a spectator it might have been easy to forget, but TY still didn't know about the gold base.
After The Dust Settled
After having his army completely eliminated, Stork continued to warp units in outside of TY’s natural forming a sort of soft contain. He was up 41 probes to 28 SCVs, but misjudged exactly how far ahead he was and ran back up TY’s ramp.
TY had rebuilt one of the bunkers, and even got a missile turret for defense against possible DTs. He was adamant about not dying and he defended Stork’s attack marvelously. Stork very quickly realized that his plan was a poor one and began to pick off a few SCVs before he cut his losses and ran.
TY was turtling extremely hard and it became obvious why when he began to produce banshees. With resources going into these fragile harassment units, there simply wouldn't be enough raw power to defend a followup attack from Stork and the additional bunkers and tanks were needed to make up for that.
Stork reacted well to the small army and strong static defense, and got a cannon at each base for detection and some protection against the banshees. It was now his turn to defend for a while, and as he had lost his mothership core in an engagement he wouldn't have photon overcharge to fall back on.
Stork on the Back Foot
It wasn't until 11:00 that Stork began any sort of non-gateway tech, opting for a robotics facility along with a twilight council. However, this doesn't necessarily mean the Protoss is going for colossus/blink tech, and, in fact, Stork stuck to gateway tech for quite a while.
After some rather uninformative scans at 11:40, TY finally discovered the gold base with a scouting medivac with only three marines. His drop was quickly ousted and had to pick up and go to the main base, where he saw a twilight council being chronoboosted. Scouting this, and the four extra gateways at last, TY had a good idea of what he would be up against.
While Stork was occupied dealing with a medivac that appeared more menacing than it was, a banshee was unfortunately rallied directly into cannon fire and had to immediately retreat without inflicting any damage, and TY definitely missed an opportunity here to get some quick probe kills. Even so, with his healthy tank count and confidence that he could keep Stork in his own base, TY boldly took a third base on the low ground, slightly before Stork took his natural expansion.
The only disadvantage TY had at that point in the game was upgrades. He was using non-stimmed marines with 0-0 against charge zealots and +2 armor being chronoboosted. His main leverage points were in the tech units, with tanks and mines being in excellent defensive positions, and cloaked banshees creating breathing space so he could attempt to catch up with upgrades. The continued banshee production proved to be extremely effective, killing several probes and even a couple of sentries. But Stork punched back with a zealot drop in TY’s main base, and both players began to relentlessly harass each other.
Stork’s decision to go for high templar tech looked to be another small victory for team TY, as he was going for significant mine production. Ever since the mine buff against Protoss shields, templar openings have struggled to survive and collosi have surged in popularity, so Stork's choice comes across as rather surprising.
However, TY wasn't going to use mines aggressively, and instead he began to very thoroughly defend his third base with them. With a very broodwar-esque setup of mines, missile turrets, supply depots and siege tanks, he was well positioned to defend the third base against any gateway-based attacks.
![[image loading]](/staff/Jer99/TyVsStork/tyvsstork3.jpg)
A good defence is a good defence.
When You’re Ahead Get More Ahead?
While TY channeled his inner Artosis, Stork decided instead to try and break the Terran's fortified position. Instead of going for a fourth base and colossus tech like a typical Protoss, he put down another 5 gateways and postured for a huge gateway flood at TY’s third while dropping zealots in the main base.
Stork dashed into TY’s territory from the west, and warped in nearly twenty zealots into TY’s main base. He pushed back a significant portion of TY’s main army and began to tear apart the main base with the zealot warp-in. In the end, the tide turned in his favor very quickly.
![[image loading]](/staff/Jer99/TyVsStork/tyvsstork4.jpg)
Space created. Everywhere.
When TY pulled his bio forces back to the main base to deal with the zealots, Stork dashed in again at the third base, this time from the south, and forced a lift off.
TY wasn't going to let Stork get away with this completely unscathed, and the banshees made a reappearance and denied the fourth base of Stork from going up. Denying the seventh and eighth geysers from a Protoss player is a huge advantage, as that traps them into only one tech route. Going for both while constantly trading quickly starves the Protoss player of gas and puts them in an awkward situation with not enough of either tech, so denying the fourth base was a huge victory for TY.
The Calm Before the Storm
As the dust settled again at around 21:00, neither player was particularly willing to commit heavily to any attacks or engagements. There was some dancing back and forth in the middle of the map, but nothing noteworthy happened until, a couple of minutes later, a double drop picked off Stork's fourth JUST before recall could save it.
After the drop, Stork had to double expand as his gold base was mined out and he was running out of gas in his main. He desperately needed the income from 8 geysers, but wasn't able to secure them just yet. TY also needed to think about a fourth base, as his main base was nearly mined out, so he floated that CC to the gold. With Terran being the mineral-hungry race, as opposed to the gas-hungry Protoss, this late base was a huge boon for TY and gave him a large advantage over Stork, who was slowly starving.
TY continued to deny gas from Stork by taking out the gold base nexus with a triple drop, and gained an advantage in base count by setting up a planetary fortress in the south. However, not all went perfectly; when TY sent a force to the south to make space for the planetary to complete, that force was caught out of position by Stork’s army resulting in Stork's army making piece meal out of the medium sized force. Stork then proceeded onward to quickly take out the fifth base, while TY’s attempted drop in the main of Stork was swatted away easily with a zealot warp-in.
Now stuck on six gas geysers, Stork was struggling to build up his colossus count. Meanwhile, TY retook the fifth base by floating his natural command center while sitting back and doing chipping damage to Stork. At this point, TY was maxed out with a mineral bank of 2000 and looked to have an insurmountable advantage.
The Storm:
Now what happened next was so incredible that casting computer crashed. The KeSPA cameramen were forced to film the secondary POV screens at the player booths to get a glimpse of the sheer skill on display.
Except instead of those silly glasses, the observing computer crashed.
Right after the computer crash, TY was a little bit too greedy and confident and tried to seize his sixth base. Stork was having none of that and easily forced TY back.
![[image loading]](/staff/Jer99/TyVsStork/tyvsstork5.jpg)
The moment of the crash.
The army of Stork kept crashing through, and the insane amount of gateways allowed for rapid reinforcement.
Where TY was just in a seemingly insurmountable lead, Stork flipped the tables and was suddenly 150 supply against 110. Not a single person watching could have expected such a turnaround. Just watch it, and do not fight the sensation of your brain melting.
![[image loading]](/staff/Jer99/TyVsStork/tyvsstork6.jpg)
Where did Terran go?
Behind the earth shattering attack, Stork secured his sixth base and continued to deny TY’s fifth base. The lead was growing in a way that no graph could express. At 38:00, Stork went in for his killing blow and found nearly ten unhotkeyed vikings for free. In many games, that would result in an instant GG, but with 3-0 air, TY still managed to kill the collosi with what few vikings he had. Fighting back hard, TY forced Stork to run all of his units into the Terran main base, but a single surviving sentry forcefielded the ramp, and the Protoss units were able to camp the Terran production facilities.
Finally, at 40:00 a contingent of Stork’s 200/200 army simply stomped the 80 supply of TY at the third base and secured the win.
GG.
![[image loading]](http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view6/4838561/release-the-river-o.gif)
